Month: January 2019

Join our informal gathering to celebrate Imbolc, the Celtic fire festival of awakening, when we welcome the returning light and the first stirrings of Spring as green shoots and snowdrops push through the soil, encouraging us to light the fire of inspiration in our hearts. This year’s celebration will include a ritual in the Druid tradition in honour of the Celtic goddess Brigid. We will work with the energies of the season and celebrate with music, meditation, poetry and more. Please feel free to bring poems, songs, stories, circle dances or other offerings to share with the group.

After the circle celebration we will share food.
Led by Laura Dobson. All welcome.

“I heard a voice speaking to me: ‘The young woman whom you see is Love… It was love which was the source of this creation in the beginning when God said: ‘Let it be! And it was. As though in the blinking of an eye, the whole creation was formed through love. The young woman is radiant in such a clear, lightning-like brilliance of countenance that you can’t fully look at her… She holds the sun and moon in her right hand and embraces them tenderly… The whole of creation calls this maiden ‘Lady.’ For it was from her that all of creation proceeded, since Love was the first. She made everything.”

Week 3 – Tuesday 29 January Water: Hildegard, herald of the divine feminine Exploring her archetypes of the divine feminine

We all enjoy the “wine that maketh glad the heart of man” (Psalm 104) – but is there a spiritual message here that we can take into our daily lives, to nourish us and those we meet in the community? We shall examine images of wine from Omar Khayyam, the three Wine Tasters of Chinese thought, and the worship of Dionysus in Ancient Greece. The wine of life, properly enjoyed, can strengthen us in our search for meaning and transcendence.

Led by Mike Rutter. All welcome.

“For just as the sun is fixed in the firmament of heaven and has power over the creatures of the earth so that nothing can overcome them, so also believers who have their hearts and minds directed toward God cannot be forgotten by God.”

Our explorations will run over 5 sessions, but each session will be stand-alone so you are welcome to attend just as many as you can.

We shall hear a story about the popular Muslim folk hero Nasruddi, who is turned away from a magnificent banquet, only to be quickly ushered in again later once he reappears wearing a splendid coat of many colours. The moral is that honour and dignity were heaped on apparel which was in fact hollow and empty, while the person inside was slighted and ignored. This might lead us to consider our own life and our shallow preoccupation with vanity while there might be a need for inner renewal and authenticity.
Led by Tom Grimshaw. All welcome.

“Love overflows into all things,
From out of the depths to above the highest stars;
And so Love overflows into all best beloved, most loving things,
Because She has given to the highest King
The Kiss of Peace.”

In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI named Hildegard von Bingen a Doctor of the Church, a Catholic holy title held by only four women. Who was this woman who was so honoured by the Church more than 800 years after her death?
Described by contemporary creation spirituality theologian Matthew Fox as “herald of the divine feminine, green prophet, church reformer” who “represents the big link between Christian spirituality and pre-patriarchial spiritualities,” Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) was abbess, artist, composer, counsellor, healer, herbalist, poet, preacher, theologian and visionary.

Join us to experience some of the many ways the grandmother of the Rhineland mystical movement speaks to us today.

Our explorations will run over 5 sessions, but each session will be stand-alone so you are welcome to attend just as many as you can.

Week 1 – Tuesday 8 January
Air:
Hildegard the composer
Exploring her music